


stupid cupid

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Series: fairy tale nonsense one-shots [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: a cracky warstan psyche & eros retelling





	stupid cupid

 

  
  
  


Once upon a time, a very powerful man had at his disposal three beautiful, highly skilled operatives - to the envy of all the land.

 

Andrea was clever, Sebastian was a perfect shot, and Mary? Mary was both.

 

"Mary," Mycroft Holmes, said powerful man, began after calling her into his office one day, "I would like to invite my brother for tea."

 

"Alright..." she replied slowly. Not sure what this had to do with her. Usually such calendar matters were Andrea's domain. 

 

"But I can't, can I? Because his time is otherwise completely occupied with this new - new - oh, what's the word, starts with an 'f'..." he trails off, gesturing whimsically.

 

"Flatmate?" Mary supplied helpfully.

 

"No, no, it's a great deal more...intimate than that."

 

"Fuckbuddy?" she tried.

 

"No, decidedly not."

 

"...friend?" 

 

"Aha! Yes, that's the one."

 

How anyone could fail to remember such a common word was beyond her, but there was Mycroft Holmes for you.

 

He sat forward in his chair and leaned across the desk to look her dead in the eye.

 

"I need you to take him out," Mycroft then told Mary.

 

"Alright..." she replied slowly, not sure in what capacity her abilities were being called into action now. Was it a honeypot? A hit? You never knew, with Mycroft Holmes.

 

"Wait until he's a little ways away from Sherlock, and then shoot him in the heart," he instructed, clearing things up considerably. "Really try not to get blood on my brother, he'll throw such a fit if it ruins that coat of his."

 

Mary was quite sure he would have a great deal more than a ruined coat to fret over under such circumstances, but decided not to say anything.

 

"Alright," she replied instead. 

 

.

 

John Watson was unlucky in love.

 

Sure, he loved to blame Sherlock and his crazy demands and his crazy case schedule and his crazy lifestyle, but the truth was, he just wasn’t that great at relationships. He had a difficult time really connecting with people, particularly with his words. 

 

The conversations were often awkward and stilted, the women having no interest in him talking about the cases, and him nodding off more than once in the middle of their stories. It was bad, especially considering many conversations were had the morning after what had really amounted to very compatible sex. The stark contrast had his partners thinking, “Well if he’s only good in bed, and I’m getting up there in age, time to start thinking about starting a family, maybe having kids, how much money does he really make?”

 

The answer was not a lot, because pay was sporadic as a consulting detective’s assistant, and honestly a lot of their wages went toward damages. 

 

The relationships tended to end shortly after.

 

This meant the longest relationship he’d had since he was discharged was his friendship with the preeminent consulting detective of the great city of London: Sherlock Holmes.

 

“JOHN! COME LOOK AT THIS BODY!”

 

John jogged over to the crime scene, ducked under the crime tape, and got to examining.

 

“Dead maybe five hours,” he told Sherlock, who was pacing the area with the pent-up nervous energy of a bundle of bees. A man had fallen out of a third story window and landed on the sidewalk, where his head got skewered onto a particularly sharp piece of pipe sticking out of the garden at the front of the townhouse. 

 

“And what time did witnesses see the fall?” Sherlock asked rhetorically. 

 

“Um, just past noon,” the forensic investigator answered literally. “So, three hours ago. Man was killed before the skewering then.”

 

That set off murmurs of murder as Sherlock grumbled and muttered his theories, sorting them out to himself in preparation for a big reveal. Those were always nice, John thought. A lot of drama and panache went into it; Sherlock had a real sense for showmanship.

 

Job done, John moved a ways away, past the crime tape again, to get better view of the proceedings, and maybe get a photo for his blog.

 

.

 

The irony of killing someone at the scene of a murder was not lost on Mary.

 

Rather than shoot him from afar with a sniper rifle, a man on the go such as John Watson required that she find him in a busy, crowded spot, and then  _ bam! _ Gun with a silencer, straight shot to the heart. Point blank and no chance of missing.

 

Dressed as any other Londoner on the sidewalk, she crossed just as he backed away from the scene of an investigation and planned to blend in with the two other people headed his way. She’d shoot him, shot muffled by the cries of the baby in the stroller pushed by the couple ahead, and he’d collapse. By then she’d be across the street at the intersection, with none the wiser. Easy.

 

So Mary approached, practiced plan in mind, and then she - 

 

\- slipped.

 

The baby in the stroller ahead had, evidently, been fed up with its applesauce and, deeming it no longer a worthy snack, thrown it to the ground like a king his gnawed-on chicken bones. Applesauce was for the peasants. Take it away!

 

No one, not even a highly skilled operative such as Mary, could predict the whims of a baby. Her boot heel landed square on the applesauce puddle, she slipped - and landed straight into the arms of Dr. John Watson.

 

It became a heart-pounding moment for entirely different reasons. Rather than the adrenaline coursing through her veins with the knowledge of a successful hit and even more successful getaway, she was staring into the kind blue eyes of a man who had jumped straight to her aid, supporting her weight with his own. His arms around hers, the two of them were bent over backward like two professional tango performers, staring at each other, mouths open, off-guard and surprised.

 

Neither of them could tell if it was becoming a long, drawn-out moment, or if it was really just an instant that went on forever in their minds.

 

“Ow,” Mary finally said.

 

“Ow?” John echoed.

 

It took another moment for them both to realize what was going on.

 

“Ow - owow _ ow _ ,” Mary winced. Oh. She had  _ actually _ sprained her ankle.

 

“I think I’ve sprained my ankle,” she said.

 

“Oh!” John looked flustered, unsure whether to set her down on the ground or help her stand, now that he had this newfound information. “I’m a doctor. Let me look at it?”

 

“Really?” Mary asked, smiling through the sting. “I’m a nurse.”

 

“Yeah?” John said, knowing he really ought to  _ not _ be grinning this hard right now. But it was awfully hard not to, looking into the face of this woman, with her sparkling eyes and good humor, with her beautiful smile.

 

“JOHN!”

 

Sherlock’s voice from beyond the tape brought them back to reality.

 

Flustered, John helped Mary get her arm around his shoulders so he could help her stand.

 

“That’s me,” he said.

 

“Hm?”

 

“John - me - I mean, I’m John. John Watson,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

 

“Mary,” she replied. “Mary Morstan. Lovely to meet you, John, but might’ve been nicer under other circumstances.”

 

He had no idea.

 

“Aha, yeah, yeah I’m really sorry about your ankle, really, let me have a look at it once we’ve gotten you a seat,” he said. 

 

Sherlock, who had finally had enough of being ignored, barged past the tape and up inches away from Mary and John.

 

“What happened.”

 

“Um, Sherlock, this is Mary, Mary this is my flatmate Sherlock, also business partner, he’s a consulting detective - “

 

“Nice to meet you, Sherlock.”

 

“ - and Mary is - a nurse you said?”

 

“I should think not.”

 

“What?”

 

“Do you know any nurses packing heat?”

 

“What?”

 

“Ugh,” was as much as Sherlock deemed to elaborate before he stalked off and hailed down a cab.

 

“Sorry about that,” John apologized to Mary, suddenly aware that with him helping her stand, they were actually standing quite close. His eyes landed on the approaching cab, and suddenly he had a bright idea.

 

“Oh, at least let us get you a cab - come with us, we’re not far and I can check out your ankle on the way - and cover the rest of your fare,” he said, and they hopped over to the car. “Where are you?”

 

“I - actually - I’d flown in to visit a friend. Bridal shower, you know,” Mary explained, as they got in the cab. John did vaguely know, having heard of such things by virtue of having an adult sister.

 

“College mates. I was going to get a hotel - they um, placed my luggage on the wrong flight, I’ve got to wait til tomorrow to pick it up, or very late tonight. Which is why I was in the area to begin with,” Mary said, seated now between the two men as the cab started moving.

 

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but John sat up and looked over with worry.

 

“No, no, you’re stuck wandering around London with a sprained ankle and nowhere to live - no luggage?”

 

“Sherlock,” he said, trying to get his friend’s attention, “Sherlock, are you hearing this?”

 

Sherlock was, in fact, trying very hard to not be ‘hearing this.’ 

 

“Ohlook,we’rehere,” Sherlock deadpanned, flinging his door open and escaping back into the flat.

 

But lo and behold, he turned around a moment later, violin already under his chin, and saw that the strange woman and followed him into his home (more accurately, John had helped her limp up the stairs, practically carried her really, insisted all the way that she stay with them rather than wandering the city alone and homeless and desolate).

 

“Stay  _ here _ John?” Sherlock cried, aghast. “Have you seen the flat? The stairs - the, the experiments! She’d be much happier at a hotel - what are you - are you setting her up on the couch? That’s - that’s  _ my  _ couch...”

 

John and Mary turned to blink identical happy smiles at Sherlock, as if none of his protests had been heard.

 

“I - I was going to give her my room, but it’s up the stairs, and like you said, better not to bother with the stairs. Your room is practically unlivable, though the bed is nice. So I thought, the couch for now, and I’ll pick up her bags for her later, yep,” John explained.

 

Mary waved a bit at Sherlock. “Thanks for letting me stay, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock thereupon made a sort of strangled sound, and set down the violin.

 

He threw his coat back on and shoved his hands into his pockets.

 

“I’ve got an urgent appointment. I’ve got to be - anywhere but here,” he said, and closed the door heavily behind him.

 

(Mycroft was very pleased when his brother showed up for cases not long after).

 

.

 

The thing about Mary was … she was different.

 

She was easy to talk to and pleasant all around, and the next morning wasn’t awkward at all.

 

(They didn’t have sex, but John was optimistic that the lack of awkwardness wasn’t just about the lack of sex so much as it was to the credit of their compatibility.)

 

They’d stayed up actually rather late, trading stories from their medical school days. He’d found out she’d never finished because her mother fell ill and she became her primary caregiver for the next four years full time, and then, sadly, her mother passed away. She found out he’d enlisted readily and found tremendous gratification in the banded fraternity of it all while serving, and was still trying to learn how to cope with that loss. It was a type of friendship yes, but a deep and special sort that he always found difficult to explain. Mary seemed to get it though, getting a faraway look in her eye as she remembered a group of friends she’d known for years, friends who’d always had her back, who she said she’d kill for and vice versa. John supposed maybe it was different for women, who as girls went nowhere not in flocks, and maybe she really did understand and have comparable relationships. 

 

Then in the morning, John had started down the stairs toward the living room, dressed and groomed and belatedly hoping Sherlock hadn’t gotten into anything weird in the middle of the night.

 

“Mary? Are you up?” he called from the stairs, also belatedly wondering whether he should have done so earlier in case she’d been up and waiting and too polite to bother him, or if he should have waited longer before coming down, and let her sleep in.

 

“Yep!” she called back, before he could get far in his worrying. 

 

“Um,” he said, as he skidded to a stop, seeing her cozy in her pajamas on the couch and the slightly messy hair, the bright, bright eyes and smile that brought the sun out.

 

“Tea?” he asked. “Toast?” He couldn’t think of much else to say.

 

She yawned, stretching her arms out. 

 

“Yes please,” Mary said, before moving to stand. John rushed to her side to help her stand, then stood back at arms length as she tested her wobble.

 

“Lean on me,” he said. “Feel free to use me as a crutch.”

 

“Oh, just to the wall,” she said, gesturing. “It’s much better already.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yep.”

 

As Mary popped into the bathroom and John to the kitchen to put on the kettle, he realized he was humming as he worked, and that he’d seldom felt so light and refreshed so early in the day.

 

.

 

Mycroft Holmes satisfied, Mary was now unsure whether she was still meant to kill this man. The original motive for murder had been so frivolous that she did wonder whether he’d have changed his mind regardless of the outcome. 

 

At first, she had accepted the  _ completely bizarre _ offer to elevate her foot in the comfort of Sherlock and John’s flat to gain proximity to the target. Nevermind that Sherlock had made her almost immediately. It helped that he didn’t particularly seem to care, having apparently deemed her not a threat despite realizing that she could be.

 

Perhaps he’d realized she wouldn’t be able to kill John before she even realized it herself.

 

Mary looked at herself in the mirror for a good long moment, wondering whether she was losing her touch.

 

She turned the water off.

 

.

 

They talked, and talked, and somewhere between the morning after and the second approaching night, Mary started getting a bit frightened at how easy it was to talk to John. She’d ran through “Mary’s” backstory and nearly too late realized she was running out of thread and starting to spin the truth. She was peppering in bits and pieces of her own life, and on the verge of telling a very real anecdote, about a blackops agent she’d worked with for years on end, who had died post-mission two years back.

 

Mary picked up her fork, shoving a huge bite of the curry takeaway they were having for dinner in her mouth, wondering what would come out of it the moment she was able to speak again. Good God! The toughest interrogations hadn’t ever gotten this much information out of her, and now here she was - telling it freely, all because some man with kind eyes and a charming smile was taking an interest in her. 

 

She’d messaged Anthea the night before and a suitcase full of things Mary might be carrying had shown up on the doorstep in the morning, preventing the need to travel together to the airport with a lie, as no doubt this chivalrous man would offer to do. And then the bridal shower she’d mentioned would give her the perfect excuse for an exit. 

 

Sherlock was, also, mysteriously, miraculously (?) gone for the entire day, now approaching two, though neither of them noticed enough to miss him.

 

“Hm? Sherlock? He does that all the time,” John had responded, when Mary sat up in the middle of some singing competition program running on the telly, and turned to John to ask where the tall broody one had gone.

 

“Oh dear,” she said. “It isn’t because of me is it?”

 

“What?” John said, eyes then going wide. “No! No, no he just. Does this. Disappears for days. Does crazy things for a case.”

 

“Are you  _ sure _ it isn’t me?” Mary asked, despite the matter being moot at this point, because her ankle was fine enough to walk on, her bags had arrived, and she was leaving the afternoon to go to the bridal party, before hopping back on a plane the next day.

 

John smiled, but before he could say something sappy like how it could never be Mary’s fault, whatever that meant, his phone rang and interrupted him.

 

“Lestrade?” he asked, brows furrowing. “What’s wrong, is it Sherlock?”

 

Mary looked up with alarm, but their worries are quickly put to rest.

 

“I can’t,” John says with a laugh. “Maybe some other time. I’ve got, um, company.”

 

“Oh, no!” Mary whispered. “Did you have plans? Please don’t cancel on the account of me, really, I  _ really _ have overstayed my welcome - pushing your flatmate out like that, keeping you home all day just because stairs give me a bit of trouble. It’s all so stupid.”

 

“It’s not! Don’t say that, it’s not,” John said, still on the phone. “I - look - no, not you, Lestrade -”

 

“Go!” Mary said, imploring, and finishing it off with a winning smile. “You have to.”

 

John looked into those big blue eyes, and knew he was done for. He had no idea how to say no to her.

 

.

 

Twenty minutes later, he walked into a pub to find Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan sitting in a corner booth gesturing wildly at a hanging screen. A game of some sort, though John had too much (well, one thing, but it was quite a preoccupying type of thing, or, well, person) on his mind to notice enough to care.

 

“John?” Sally said, squinting as he slid into the seat across from her. “You look - different.”

 

“Yeah, what happened?” Greg asked, turning to get a good look at him.

 

“What?” John asked turning in turn to look at them both, and then down at his shirt and jumper, which he wore all the time, they’d seen him like this, all the time. He really didn’t look anything different. “What?”

 

“Your face,” Greg elucidated unclearly.

 

“You’re  _ smiling _ ,” Sally added, spelling it out. “You look happy, and not the ‘we solved a case!’ happy, but like, stupid happy. Are you already drunk, is that why you wouldn’t come out?”

 

“What? No!”

 

“It’s not sex, you just broke up,” Greg added.

 

“You two - you two are horrible.”

 

John stared at them, and they stared back.

 

“Oh alright, yes, I’m happy. I met someone.”

 

Greg and Sally traded suspicious looks.

 

“Someone normal! Not like the woman who was secretly hiding a shrine to her ex in the attic that turned into one of our top-read cases on the site…” he muttered.

 

“You don’t like normal,” Greg said with some trepidation.

 

“Yeah,” Sally added. “We thought you were shacked up with Sherlock. That is your type, isn’t it? It’s why your relationships don’t work out.”

 

“What! No! She’s normal! She’s a nurse! We met because she was on the way to a - a bridal shower or something.”

 

Greg squinted, being already quite inebriated. 

 

“Like a sexy nurse?”

 

“What, no,” John said, offended. Then he backtracks. “I mean, not that she’s not uh.”

 

They waited for him to finish.

 

“Um,” John tried. “No. What.”

 

Sally and Greg traded glances again.

 

“How much do you really know about this woman?” Sally asked. 

 

John looked baffled. What was this? He just came out to have a good time with his pals from down at the yard and honestly right now he felt so - so - 

 

“Look,” Greg said, looking him straight in the eye. “We just want you to be happy.”

 

John looked from Greg to Sally to Greg.

 

“And to do that, you need to have your heart intact,” Greg continued. 

 

Sally nodded, backing him up. 

 

John looked down at his beer. He supposed Greg was right. Coming fresh out of his divorce, the man must have been completely heartbroken. And seeing John so happy, well, John wondered if he’d been reminding Greg of what he had just lost. Best move on to other topics then.

 

.

 

John heard the water running as he set foot again in 221B. By the looks of it, Sherlock was still out, and he supposed Mary was running bath. 

 

He sat down heavily in his chair, and rubbed at his chin. He could feel the beginnings of stubble, and wondered if he could pull off a beard. 

 

His thoughts soon drifted to Mary, and then those thoughts collided with Greg’s and Sally’s words from the pub. 

 

Was Mary really who he thought she was?

 

He  _ did _ only meet her a day - a day and a half ago. But they had had such  _ talks _ that it felt like he’d known her for  _ years _ . 

 

His eyes landed on Mary’s suitcase, and then travelled over to her purse.

 

John shot a quick glance at the bathroom door, and then scooted over from his chair to the couch. And then closer to the bags. From his seat, he could directly see the door. Keeping an eye on it, he poked a finger into the purse, and slowly lifted up the flap. Wider and wider he made the opening, craning his head to discern its contents. A lipstick. A wallet. No stethoscope, as Sally had drunkenly suggested she should be carrying, just because she was a nurse or something equally preposterous. A pen. A rubber band. A crumpled up reciept.

 

All very normal things, John supposed.

 

He scooted a bit further down, and eyed the suitcase. 

 

He gulped.

 

John glanced at the door again, then rubbed his hands together to gain some resolve. He took a deep breath, and then lifted open the top of the already-unzipped carry-on suitcase. 

 

He was immediately greeted with the sight of a lavender bra with purple, floral lace trim.

 

John slammed the top of the case back down.

 

This was - this was  _ mad,  _ just completely  _ mad _ \- he was supposed to be a gentleman and here he was looking through her things, not just her things but her  _ underthings -  _

 

and at that thought, the image sprung back to his mind unbidden. The open suitcase, a pair of folded jeans in the left corner, a rolled up T-shirt beside it, the bra beside that, on top of a passport.

 

John blinked.

 

Passport?

 

He lifted up the suitcase flap again, propelled by his impulse to sate his curiosity, forgetting propriety.

 

He reached for the passport, intending only to open it quickly and confirm her name - and his eyes widened as his fingers clasped upon something bigger than he hand intended.

 

Slowly withdrawing his hand from the bra, John looked at the five little passports he held in hand.

 

Five.

 

Who - 

 

His initial thought went toward, embarrassingly, secret agent films, like the Bourne ones, where agents had tons and tons of identities and the proper documentation to go with them. But that was laughable, wasn’t it, because people had secure storage lockers for this kind of stuff and it seemed awfully counterintuitive to carry them around with you, really it seemed like an awfully poor plot point for someone who is supposedly a secret agent.

 

Then, John realized, oh. She must have dual citizenship of some sort. And perhaps kept her old passports. Yes, that must be it.

 

More curious than ever, he opened the first one to find Ariel Shafir, a woman with dark hair and Mary’s face, and completely different eyebrows. 

 

Frantic now, he flipped over the next one, realizing too late how preoccupied he’d been, as he heard the lock pop.

 

Mary stepped out of the bath, towel wrapped around her, blonde short hair wet and brushed backwards, and stopped in her tracks as John stared right back up at her.

 

“So,” she said. 

 

He stared back. On the one hand he was caught red-handed. On the other hand, she’d lied, terribly. It was a bit of a moral toss-up here.

 

“So, John,” she started again. “You’ve found out who I am.”

 

“Um,” John stammered, before he caught himself and felt his anger flare. 

 

“What exactly did I find out - “ he looked down at the second passport he’d opened - “Elizabeth Moran. If that’s even your real name.”

 

“It’s not.”

 

“Okay,” he said, nodding furiously, trying to get control back over his emotions. He whipped open yet another passport. Mary with a chocolate brown pixie cut this time.  “Cynthia McCormick.”

 

“That’s not it either.”

 

“Alice Heinrich?”

 

“No - those are just aliases, just drop it,” Mary sighed.

 

“Rosamund Mary Morstan.”

 

She froze.

 

“That. Yeah, actually.”

 

“So you’re,” John swallowed. “Like.”

 

She waited.

 

“A flight attendant….” A last ditch effort.

 

“No.”

 

“Secret agent.”

 

“Of sorts, yes.”

 

John leaned back, heavily. Then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, passport still in hand. He exhaled noisily, then buried his face in his hands.

 

Mary walked over and plucked the last passport from his fingers, and he tried not to look down her towel.

 

When he finally looked up again, she’d grabbed her things and gotten dressed.

 

“Goodbye, John.”

 

And then he was left on the couch, alone.

 

.

 

John was desolate the next day, and the next. He’d scarcely gotten up from the couch, though it only gave him memories of him and Mary watching crap telly together. He was so desolate even Sherlock had noticed, and nudged him suspiciously with his violin bow when John failed to answer one too many times, and wasn’t listening at all.

 

“John?” Sherlock asked shakily, before deciding desperate times called for desperate measures, and started texting behind his back.

 

.

 

“You know,” Sherlock said later. “If you’re trying to track down people who don’t want to be tracked down, Mycroft probably has footage of exactly where they’ve gone.”

 

John looked up in surprise at that.

 

“I figured expediency would be preferable to excitement in this case,” Sherlock said with a half shrug. “No sense running ‘round half of London gathering clues if Mycroft’s got a GPS location, right?”

 

John bolted to his feet, then to the door. He’d remember to thank Sherlock later.

 

.

 

“I’ll help you find her if you complete three quests.”

 

Mycroft smiled at John from behind his big, oak desk, fingers entwined before him.

 

“Um. Quests?” John asked. “Like cases, you mean? The legwork stuff, that’s too simple for Sherlock to want to take on?”

 

“Not quite,” Mycroft said. “Just a few jobs.”

 

.

 

John stood as high as he dared to climb up the ladder and still he was reaching so high his arm ached with the effort and his legs strained from being pulled taut.

 

He turned the thin glass bulb in his hand gingerly, and sighed with relief when it finally came loose, cradled gently in his arm as he curled it inward toward his chest, careful not to let it slip from his grasp.

 

“You know,” John said aloud, “when you said  _ jobs _ I thought you meant maybe wrangling Sherlock - “

 

“You already do that for free,” Mycroft said, standing several feet away doing  _ absolutely nothing _ in his own foyer. 

 

“-or like putting out a hit on someone.”

 

“I have people for that.”

 

“You know!” John said, voice tight as he tried to screw in the new bulb. “You’re a  _ lot _ taller than me, and it’d be  _ loads easier _ if you changed the bulb yourself.”

 

“Oh, I have people for that.”

 

“Yeah, people being  _ me _ , evidently,” John grumbled under his breath.

 

.

 

Next, they made their way to the kitchen, and John was beginning to think perhaps Mycroft was just having him on, but if it meant that he was going to help find Mary, well, by all means.

 

John sighed and stood waiting by the kitchen island as Mycroft ducked into a pantry.

 

He reemerged with a container of salt, which he opened and took the lid off of, and then started unscrewing the lid of the pepper container. And then he poured the pepper into salt.

 

“Oops,” Mycroft said. John raised an eyebrow.

 

“Please separate these.” 

 

John’s head snapped back.

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked, eyes narrowing. 

 

“Certainly not,” Mycroft responded, having the audacity to sound offended. And then, he promptly turned on his heel, and headed out.

 

.

 

John heads to the closest Tesco, because he’s not an idiot.

 

He grabs a container of salt, and a container of pepper, not caring much about the brand, though mostly out of spite, and headed toward the self-checkout to meet his old enemy.

 

“I came prepared this time,” he announced, brandishing a card - a card which he had nicked from Mycroft.

 

He scanned the items, bagged them up, and then came the moment of revelation - 

 

The card worked perfectly.

 

.

 

Back in the kitchen, John picked up the salt container and dumped the whole salt-and-pepper mix into the plastic bag he’d carried home with him. Then he dumped the new salt into Mycroft’s salt container, and the pepper into the other. He packed up the trash, and tossed it all into the bin, wondering if Mycroft would even notice or care.

 

Not five minutes later, Mycroft waltzed in, took one look at the filled containers, and stopped before one of his cabinets.

 

“Want to know a secret?” he asked John, eyebrow arched.

 

“What?” John asked, voice flat.

 

Mycroft opened the cabinet door to reveal a fresh pepper grinder, and a glass jar of pink Himalayan salt.

 

“I don’t actually use those,” Mycroft whispered conspiratorially, gesturing to the newly purchased salt and pepper on the island.

 

John did not look amused.

 

.

 

“Your third and final task,” Mycroft said, rummaging through his study.

 

“Water from Reichenbach Falls,” he said, placing a small glass jar into John’s hand that was surprisingly heavy.

 

“Um. Okay,” John said. He pulled out his phone to look up the location and call a cab.

 

.

 

The driver will only take John so far, so he has to slosh his way to the top, which he supposes won’t be all that difficult. The spray was actually a bit wild, especially since it was a windy day, and the jar he had to fill was not all that big.

 

As John approached the summit, he thought he spotted two figures far away, near the top of the falls. 

 

Huh, he thought, but wasn’t it quite dangerous here? There, even more so. To get to the water, you had to deliberately continue down a path marked with a yellow danger, don’t enter sign.

 

“Oh, shit,” John blurted out, realizing he recognized one of those figures. “That’s  _ Sherlock _ .”

 

Indeed it was. Sherlock Holmes, grappling with a top-hatted man - “Hey, isn’t that the professor bloke he keeps going on about?” John gasped, clutching his free hand in his hair, ready to run toward the danger and save his friend.

 

He stopped himself in time, before he could run and slip, and feels around the belt of his trousers - gun - he needed his gun.

 

He fired - 

 

And nothing happened; the spray was too wild, and the gun all wet and useless. 

 

“If only I had a - “

 

John looked down in his other hand.

 

\- and threw the jar, hard as he could, straight down the line -

 

\- and it  _ SMACKED _ straight into Professor Moriarty’s head.

 

And off he went - over the edge.

 

Sherlock, standing suddenly alone, peers down over the edge and wondered at his good fortune, replaying the moment in his mind and searched for an explanation. He squinted through the mist toward his mystery savior.

 

“JOHN? IS THAT YOU?”

 

“YEAH,” John yelled back over the roar of the falls. “HEY, FANCY SEEING YOU HERE?”

 

“UM. YEAH.”

 

“HEY DID THE JAR GO OVER TOO, BY ANY CHANCE? I NEED TO GET SOME WATER FROM THE WATERFALL.”

 

Sherlock patted his coat down, and retrieved a test tube from his inner pocket. He held it out for a moment until it filled, and put a stopper on it.

 

“THERE,” he called back. “FIFTY MILLILITERS, ABOUT THE SAME.”

 

“THANKS MATE.”

 

.

 

The two of them were soaked, but with the aid of a hefty up-front tip, the cab driver obliged to take them back home.

 

“Can you drop me off here?” John asked, before the vehicle had made its way to Baker Street.

 

Sherlock looked out the window.

 

“Isn’t this Mycroft’s dumb club?”

 

“Oh, I think they all  _ can _ speak, they just choose not to.”

 

“Not what I meant. What business do you have with my brother?”

 

“Um.”

 

“Is this about a ladyfriend, John.”

 

“Um.”

 

“Alright, forget I asked.”

 

.

 

John got shown in after some wrangling and proof that he knew Mycroft (he knew that Christmas selfie would come in handy) and really he didn’t even care about all the looks he was getting for sploshing his way through the posh club all the way to the back where Mycroft’s office was located - inside which he would actually be allowed to speak.

 

He pushed open the door and was barely inside the office before he opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Mycro- “

 

He stopped, because Mary was standing - right there.

 

His heart soared with glee - but for a moment. It was clear then, nearly right away, that Mary, dressed in all black with her tac vest, and Mycroft sitting all serious - they clearly knew each other.

 

“You two know each other!” John exclaimed, mouth as quick as the revelation that sparked in his brain.

 

“Um.” The two of them looked like deer in headlights. 

 

“And you still made me do all those stupid tasks in exchange for you helping me track her down!”

 

Mycroft looked down and away, scratching his nose, but Mary - Mary lit up.

 

“John,” she said, trying for levity but voice thick with emotion. “You were willing to make a bargain with the devil to get my number?”

 

“Hey,” Mycroft tried to interject, objecting to being likened to the devil. 

 

But John didn’t even care, because, in that moment, it might have been a joke, but he knew what his answer was.

 

“I’d walk through hell and back, Mary,” John said earnestly, taking a step toward her, just as she took a step toward him.

 

Their two faces drew toward each other like a flower to the sun, their bodies moved as if drawn in by some magnetic force.

 

Mycroft shrunk back in his seat as the metaphorical heart-eyes appeared, and they moved close enough to embrace.

 

“Ugh,” he said. “Get this disgusting display of affection out of my sight. Shoo.”

 

And they lived happily ever after.

 

**Author's Note:**

> now I'm picturing Mycroft as the head of some Charlie's Angels-esque thing with Mary, Anthea, and Sebastian as the angels


End file.
